When two people dig long enough, they eventually meet each other.Johnny Dowd and Melle de Boer have been digging tunnels in the human soul for years.As Orpheusen they descend into the underworld and with danger to their own lives bring out the most beautiful things.Now those tunnels come together.December 2017 Johnny Dowd comes out with an album with his interpretations of American Folk classics.Songs like: Going Down the Road, St. James Infirmary, Tom Dooley, Oh my Darling Clementine.They are Traditionals, the basis of American music.Johnny and Melle will bring them almost unrecognizable.Not quaint, but as they should sound now, current, full of soul, electricity and necessity.They mirror a direct reaction to current American society, with all the tensions and uncertainties that are conceivable in this respect.

Melle de Boer will release an album in early 2018.A solo album very close to itself.This album is recorded in his attic.The same attic as the father of Melle left after his divorce.Ghosts live in that attic.Ghosts that whisper songs.Johnny and Melle are going to tour the Netherlands.They play their songs.Old songs, new songs.Not a dull singer-songwriter night but electric, chaotic, hard and ugly, soft and beautiful.Alone and together.They combine their completely individual worlds to provide an unforgettable, but especially unique, performance.Johnny takes his guitarist Mike Edmondson with him.He provides a solid percussion guitar that Johnny can put all his craziness and chaos into.Mike also sings along.Melle is assisted by Suzanne Ypma.She has recorded his new album together with Melle.Suzanne is from the electropop.The synthesizer has an important role in the new album.

JOHNNY DOWDJohnny Dowd has been known as one of the last remaining real folk originals.‘Dowd may not be in the form, but in spirit a late follower of the pre-war blues singers’ NRC 2001. Johnny Dowd (born March 29, 1948 in Fort Worth, Texas) is an American alto country musician from Ithaca, New York.Typical for his style are experimental, noisy, pauses in his songs and strong gothic (in the sense of dark and sombre) elements in the songs and in music.There is also a strong undercurrent of black humor and the absurdity in his work.As a singer-songwriter his music is compared with the music of Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Captain Beefheart.

MELLE DE BOERSince 2001 Melle has been interpreting his ‘American’ music. His band Smutfish, founded in 1999, has built up an extensive body of work since the debut album ‘Lawnmower Mind’ and recorded 5 CDs at various record companies.Through performances at, among others, Noorderslag, SXSW in Austin, Texas, the Popkomm in Berlin and the Reeperbahn festival in Hamburg, the band has toured a lot through the Netherlands and Europe.Also noteworthy is the tour with Daniel Johnston in 2007 and 2008. In 2015 the release of the album “Trouble” took place at the leading Dutch label Excelsior Recordings.The ensuing tour of film houses made it clear that by adding drawings to the music, the texts were better understood, so an extra dimension to a performance was added.